Latest news with #workweek
Forbes
a day ago
- Business
- Forbes
Beyond Perks—Why Conscious Culture Is A Scalable Business Strategy
Greg Dolan, CEO, Keen Decision Systems. In today's startup landscape, culture often gets reduced to surface-level perks: remote work options, wellness stipends and quarterly offsites. While those things have their place, they're not culture. They're benefits. And when the pressure's on, those perks won't protect your company from internal dysfunction or a surge of people leaving for greener pastures. When everyone is offering the same thing, how can you differentiate yourself? We believe real culture isn't what happens on the surface. Rather, it's the system under the surface. It's the logic, behaviors, rituals and decisions that persist, especially when things get hard. Culture is how your company responds to tension, change, conflict and opportunity. And it's either intentional or accidental. For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic, did your team band together and rally around a set of shared values or did your organization splinter and grow apart? Most companies don't consciously design culture. They inherit it, or worse, they drift into it. When we founded Keen in 2010, we decided that culture would not be an afterthought. Instead, it would be the operating system, informing everything we do. Smart organizations make culture a bedrock principle from the start. We codified our values from day one and tied them to how we hire, promote, give feedback and reward. In addition, we implemented a four-day workweek before it was cool. The goal was not to be trendy, but because we believe performance and rest are partners, not opposites. Startups are notoriously tough on people, so by valuing your employees, you can ensure that they're able to thrive while also building a strong organization. Additionally, we built a performance development system rooted in coaching, feedback and quarterly OKRs, instead of annual reviews that no one uses and where feedback is unclear. We separated accountability from fear, clarity from micromanagement and growth from burnout. We didn't add culture. We architected it and we're better as an organization because of it. The lie corporate America has told for too long is that culture is soft. Or secondary. Or HR's job. But we believe that culture is strategy, infrastructure and compounding value. If you want to build something that lasts, culture has to scale with your business model. You can't scale trust, performance and autonomy if your systems are still managing appearances instead of outcomes. As a result of our culture focus, we've experienced faster onboarding because people know who we are. Additionally, there's a greater alignment among teams because decisions are values-aligned and we've experienced lower churn because the workplace actually works for people. We've also created more resilient teams because they've been built in truth, not theater. In a world where startups are pressured to grow at all costs, the companies that build with intention and humanity on a strong cultural spine will likely outperform in the long term. They'll also attract the best people, retain their customers and scale sustainably. By putting culture at the forefront, you can create an organization that people want to work for. Beyond that, by practicing a culture rooted in self-awareness, trust and individual accountability, people can thrive both personally and professionally. Founders have an unfair advantage. You don't have 100 years of dysfunction to undo. You can design your operating system from day one. The question is: will you? Forbes Business Council is the foremost growth and networking organization for business owners and leaders. Do I qualify?
Gulf Business
11-06-2025
- Gulf Business
UAE's next public holiday falls in June; see details
Image: WAM Post the Eid Al Adha weekend, UAE residents can still look forward to several The Eid break, observed from Thursday to Sunday (June 5–8), gave employees a four-day weekend, with the workweek resuming on Monday, June 9. The next public holiday is likely to be Islamic (Hijri) New Year, which marks the start of Muharram, the first month of the Islamic lunar calendar. Based on current astronomical projections, the date is expected to fall on Thursday, June 26. Next UAE public holiday in 2025: Possible long weekend in June However, if the month of Dhu Al Hijja spans 30 days, the holiday may instead occur on Friday, June 27. The day will mark the beginning of the year 1447 in the Islamic calendar. Islamic New Year is typically a quiet day of reflection with no formal religious rituals. Following that, the Prophet Mohammed's birthday is anticipated on Thursday, September 4. The UAE's final stretch of holidays in 2025 includes Commemoration Day, expected to be observed on Monday, December 1. This will likely be followed by National Day celebrations on Tuesday, December 2, and Wednesday, December 3.
Free Malaysia Today
29-05-2025
- Business
- Free Malaysia Today
JPA gives final deadline for 45-hour work week for nurses
The Malayan Nurses Union had voiced strong protest against the additional hours, saying ward nurses were already under undue pressure working for 42 hours a week. PETALING JAYA : The public services department (JPA) has given the health ministry a two-month extension for the implementation of the 45-hour work week for ward nurses. In a letter to the ministry's secretary-general yesterday, JPA said the new date would be Aug 1. Adding that this would be the final extension, it urged hospitals to strictly follow its circular on the new working hours. 'The interim extension due to end on June 1 will now be extended to Aug 1. This is the final extension. All directives issued on the matter must be complied with,' it said. However, it said the extension did not mean that health facilities which had already drawn up plans for the new shift hours could not proceed. 'With this extension, we hope that the health ministry will take the necessary measures to ensure that the implementation of the new work hours is carried out accordingly.' JPA initially approved a period of three months from Dec 1 last year for hospitals to prepare for the implementation of a 45-hour work week. The health ministry subsequently requested and received approval for an extension of the moratorium from March 1 to May 31. This was later extended again to June 1. The Malayan Nurses Union had voiced strong protest against the additional hours, saying ward nurses were already under undue pressure working for 42 hours a week.
Yahoo
22-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
The corporate work week grows even longer
This story was originally published on To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily newsletter. Henry Ford's idea, implemented in 1926, was that shortening the work week to 40 hours would improve workers' well-being, boost their ability to spend and reduce turnover. A century later those goals still hold value, but the 40-hour week is long gone, for the most part. The average work week now weighs in at 46.6 hours, according to a new survey of more than 10,000 Microsoft Office users by Reclaim AI, a Dropbox-owned provider of workforce productivity tools. The trend is hardly new, but it's deepening: In an earlier version of the survey published in October 2022, the average work week was 45.8 hours. In the recent survey, only 30.9% of employees reported working 40 hours or fewer per week, and more than one in 10 said they worked more than 60 weekly hours. This embedded content is not available in your region. Unsurprisingly, executives logged the most weekly hours, averaging 50.2, although all other worker categories were in the mid-40s. On a department-by-department basis, accounting and finance averaged 46.9 hours, the most other department than the C-suite, sales and administrative. Human resources put in the fewest hours. This embedded content is not available in your region. Reclaim AI had found in the earlier survey that the leading cause of burnout was a lack of time for focused work, much of it caused by incoming emails, chat messages, scheduled meetings and brief, informal team meetings. 'Regardless of your job title, everyone needs time to focus on heads-down work,' the company wrote in its new survey report. The average employee said they wanted 19.6 hours per week for such focus, but are getting only 10.6 hours of it. Employees said that while they ideally want to attend 8.2 meetings per week, they actually attend 10.6 meetings. Executives and managers both attend about 30% more meetings than they consider to be optimally productive. Accounting and finance workers attend about 23% more meetings than they'd prefer. 'The biggest time loss most organizations face is unnecessary meetings that may be over-scheduled or lack a clear objective,' the report said. Meetings that need to be rescheduled are particularly problematic, as 'last-minute cancellations create major time loss for attendees who invest time to ready their action items for discussion.' Surveyed executives said they reschedule or cancel 5.1 meetings per week, compared to the 11.5 meetings they actually attend. Yet, the volume of meetings has been steeply declining in recent years, according to Reclaim AI's research. As recently as 2021, employees were attending an average of 25.6 meetings per week. Recommended Reading 54% of employees say they're 'quiet cracking'
The Guardian
14-05-2025
- Health
- The Guardian
The 52-hour work week: why it could boost your brain – in a bad way
Name: The 52-hour work week. Age: Relatively new – our hunter-gatherer ancestors probably only worked for 15 hours a week. Appearance: Frazzled. How much is a 52-hour week, exactly? It works out to 10.4 hours a day, five days a week. Mad. And stupid. You'd have to be, right? A new study suggests those working more than 52 hours could suffer effects including 'emotional instability or reduced cognitive efficiency in the longer term'. So working too hard is bad for you. I'm shocked. Previous studies have shown that overwork leads to stress, anxiety and reduced cognitive function. But the new study, published in the journal Occupational and Environmental Medicine, also shows that working too hard produces physical changes in the brain. What kind of changes? Increased brain volume in specific areas associated with executive function – cognitive skills – and emotional regulation in those working more than 52 hours a week, when compared with a non-overworked group. So the more I work, the smarter and more emotionally regulated I get. That could be happening in the short term, but other studies have shown such increases in grey matter can have a negative impact on executive function. Why have they settled on 52 hours? The study examined the brains of healthcare workers in South Korea, where the Korean Labour Standards Act identifies 52 hours a week as the critical threshold for increased health risk. Other studies have used 55 hours. What about Britain? How much is too much? In the UK it's illegal to make someone work more than 48 hours per week. Not just illegal, but almost impossible – you'd probably have to come in on Fridays! But 48 hours is an average, normally calculated over 17 weeks. And there are exceptions. What kind of exceptions? Those working in the armed forces, emergency services and police, for example. Just the sort of people you'd want to have tip-top cognitive function, ironically. You can also opt out of the 48-hour week and work more hours, as long as you confirm that in writing. I would consider doing that, if I was able to secure my dream job. What is your dream job? Testing mattresses. I think you'll find it's more difficult than it sounds. Do say: 'I worked hard to get where I am today – emotionally unstable and cognitively impaired.' Don't say: 'Do you ever do studies on people who work fewer than 20 hours a week? Because I'd like to sign up.'
